Chapter 458: The Beginning Of The End [CXX]

[You’ve killed two hundred and twenty-three✯ True Gods!]

[You’ve killed one hundred and eighty-five 8✯ True Gods!]

[You have absorbed all of their authorities!]

[The Authority of Ice has reached the Primordial God Grade!]

[Your attributes have been increased tremendously.]

“…Pfft!”

A mouthful of blood escaped Aestrea’s lips.

“Ugh… this fucking sucks,” he groaned, wiping the blood on his lips with his thumb before spitting onto the ground.

This fight had truly made him go beyond his limits.

That last punch had taken everything.

Every scrap of divine energy he had left, his full-blown Authority of Karma, every broken and burning and barely-functional part of himself, poured into a single palm strike.

Thankfully, it was more than enough to kill that ugly fucker.

“Hah… now I’m certainly one of the main targets of the Primordial Court,” Aestrea laughed lightly.

Crack!

A sudden spatial fissure appeared in the sky, causing Aestrea’s body to move before his mind fully caught up with it.

Both swords flew back into his hands from wherever they had drifted during the fight, slapping into his palms by reflex, and he dropped into a stance that his legs immediately filed a formal complaint about.

Every wound he had told him simultaneously that this was a bad idea.

He held the stance anyway.

“…Aestrea?”

From the fissure, a gorgeous golden-haired woman appeared with worried eyes, frantically looking around before her eyes finally landed on Aestrea’s form.

He was bleeding a lot… clothes all ripped up, showing his muscles.

“Olivia… you’re finally here,” he sighed in complete relief.

The stance dissolved on its own.

Both swords slipped from his hands as his knees gave out, but before he could meet intimately with the ground, he felt two huge mounds instead.

“Aestrea!” Olivia’s voice reached out to him.

Her hands were on his face, then his chest, moving across him frantically, checking for damage, finding it everywhere she looked.

“Aestrea, stay with me!”

’…She smells good,’ he thought before closing his eyes, passing out almost directly.

…..

“Ugh… where am I?”

The ceiling was unfamiliar, and that was the first thing he registered.

Stone, pale and smooth, with fine veining that caught the low light in thin silver lines.

Simple in structure but precise in a way that suggested whoever had built this room had cared about the details even when they hadn’t needed to.

A single carved border ran along the top of each wall where it met the ceiling, nothing elaborate, just clean enough to make it look good.

He stared at it for a moment.

“Did Olivia put me here..?”

He tried to sit up.

Clink!

His right arm stopped moving approximately eight inches off the bed. His left arm stopped at the same distance in the opposite direction.

Both ankles met the same resistance a fraction of a second later when his legs attempted to follow the rest of him upward.

He looked down.

“…Chains?”

They seemed to be made out of precious stone, considering its golden tone.

“The fuck?”

He pulled carefully at first, and then mustered a lot of strength.

Clink…

The chains held without any particular effort.

’Fine. I’ll use divine energy then.’

He reached inward, found what remained of his reserves, and pushed a careful thread of it outward through his wrists toward the chains.

Thrum!

The chains… absorbed it.

They didn’t even block or simply resist it!

They absorbed it, drawing the divine energy out of him the moment it made contact, causing the markings along the links to pulse slightly brighter for a moment.

Then returned to their dim glow.

“…This.”

He stared at the chains, and unfortunately, the chains offered no explanation.

“…Olivia wouldn’t do this, would she? I doubt she’s at that level of craziness… already,” he muttered to himself.

Creack!

The door suddenly opened.

Olivia stood in the doorway.

She had changed clothes.

She wore a nightgown, if it could even be called that.

The fabric was midnight silk, so thin it barely existed between her skin and the air.

It followed every curve of her body, the deep plunge of the neckline splitting low between her breasts, leaving them mostly bare save for two narrow crosses of lace that sat over her rose-pink nipples, already stiffened against the cool air of the room, the delicate material doing nothing to conceal them and clearly not designed to.

The silk gathered at her waist where a thin silver cord cinched it just enough to make the flare of her hips below it something impossible to ignore.

Then fell away in a slit that climbed all the way up to the curve of her hip, the opening shifting with every small movement she made, revealing and concealing the long line of her thigh.

The hem barely reached mid-thigh.

Her legs below it were bare.

Her golden hair fell loose over one shoulder, seemingly even brighter because of the lamplight.

She was holding a small tray that contained a few containers that might be some kind of medicine, and also some cloth.

Her golden eyes quickly found his across the room.

And she smiled gently… caring in a way that was completely genuine and completely normal and would have been entirely reassuring if not for the very specific context of the chains currently attached to all four of his limbs.

“You’re awake,” she uttered softly.

She stepped into the room.

The door swung shut behind her on its own.

Click.

Aestrea looked at the door.

At the chains, then back at Olivia, moving toward him with the tray and the gentle smile and the nightgown that had no business existing.

Then at the chains again.

“…Olivia. Why am I chained to a bed?”

She set the tray down on the small table beside him, straightening the cup slightly after she placed it, making sure the cloth was folded neatly.

“You were moving in your sleep,” she said pleasantly.

“I was worried you’d hurt yourself.”

“I was unconscious.”

“Yes.” She agreed without any indication that she found this relevant.

“Olivia.”

“Mm?”

“These chains absorb divine energy.”

“I know.” She picked up the cloth and dipped it into a small basin of water beside the tray, wringing it out gently.

“You were trying to leave before, in your sleep,” she paused.

“I couldn’t have that happen.”

She turned toward him with the cloth.

“You pushed yourself so hard,” she stated softly, reaching out to press the cool cloth gently against the cut on his cheekbone.

Her touch was careful, trying not to hurt him the slightest.

“You need to rest.”

“I need to find the others.”

“They’re fine.”

“Olivia—”

“—They’re fine, Aestrea.” Her voice stayed gentle.

“I made sure of it.”

She moved the cloth to his jaw, dabbing at dried blood with the same careful attention.

“Everyone arrived safely. Christina’s array worked perfectly.”

“Then unchai—”

“—No.”

She looked at him.

“You fought four hundred gods alone,” she said quietly.

The warmth in her eyes didn’t change, except for the small tinge of madness that appeared right beneath it.

“You were barely standing when I got there.”

“I was standing.”

“You fell.”

“I was about to stand back up.”

Olivia looked at him for a long, patient moment.

Then she reached out and gently pressed two fingers to his unwounded cheek, tilting his face toward hers with absolutely no force whatsoever and absolutely no possibility of resistance.

“Rest,” she said softly.

Her golden eyes, this close, were very steady.

“I’ll take care of everything.”

After saying those words, Olivia set the cloth down and then picked up the small containers from the tray one by one, opening each and applying their contents to the worst of his wounds.

The deep cut on his cheekbone.

The gash along his left side.

The shoulder that had been wrong since the earth god had landed on it. The burn across his ribs from the fire god’s column.

She worked through all of it without speaking.

Aestrea let her.

Partly because the chains made his available options limited.

Mostly because arguing with someone wearing that nightgown while chained to a bed in an unfamiliar room had a very specific energy that he had decided, tactically, not to engage with directly.

’They’ll heal on their own anyway,’ he thought, watching her hands move across his shoulder with the cloth.

’Once my divine energy recovers, all of this closes in a few hours. She knows that, but still does it anyway.’

He watched her face while she carefully took care of his wounds.

She was looking at the wounds, her golden eyes moving from one to the next, her brow furrowing slighly in concentration.

Her golden hair fell forward over one shoulder as she leaned across him to reach the cut along his ribs, the loose waves of it brushing his arm briefly before she pushed it back behind her ear without thinking.

She found a bruise along his left forearm that he had genuinely forgotten about.

Her fingers stilled on it for a moment.

Just a moment.

Then she continued.

When she finished, she set the last container down on the tray and straightened, looking at her work with a small yet proud look.

Her eyes moved across him one more time, head to the visible wounds, checking that she’d found everything.

Then she picked up the tray, set it on the table, and came back to the bed.

Rustle~

She pulled back the covers on the side of the bed beside him with one hand and lay down beside him.

She pulled the covers up to her waist and settled her golden hair against the pillow before looking up at the ceiling with a deadpanned expression.

Silence sat over the room.

“…Olivia.”

“Mm.”

“I’m still chained to the bed.”

“I know.”

“Are you going to take them off?”

“No.”

Aestrea sighed.

’…Whatever. I might as well recover my energy before getting out of here.’

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